Sunday, April 09, 2006

*MOJO* - BOS @ BAL - Winter Wonderland Day 4

Put your jackets on, because the forecast calls for more cold weather. As the temperature drops, the water in the clouds above slowly changes to ice. And those tiny ice crystals will combine and drop from the skies. They fall by the trillions and slowly pile up, blanketing the ground with mojo.

Today is snowflake mojo, for just as each individual flake is unique, so too is each one of Tim Wakefield's knuckleballs. After it releases his hand, it will flutter and dip just as a snowflake would in the wind, making it exceedingly difficult to hit.

Of course, snowflake mojo isn't just for Wakes, but for the offense as well. Today they face old nemesis Rodrigo Lopez, a pitcher who always gives the Red Sox fits. The key to today's game will not be the mammoth home runs (al though with some of our guys that is a distinct possibility), but the little things. Getting on base, hitting singles, taking walks. And all these little things will start to pile up until it reaches a breaking point. Until finally: an avalanche of runs.

We continue now the effort to introduce the new faces to the Sox roster, today with new Wakefield battery mate Josh Bard and "Totally True Factoids".

- Every player has different things they enjoy doing in the offseason. Josh Bard plays bass in a Quiet Riot tribute band.

- When asked which player he would most like to catch, Josh answered "John Wasdin". When asked why, he said that "with so many balls leaving the yard, Way Back makes it easy on my glove hand." He then yelled "Burn!" and high-fived everyone within arms reach.

- Josh Bard's favorite pre-game food is Chinese food. This is due to his superstition of wearing his helmet all day before a start, and the chopsticks make it much easier to get the food through the mask.

- Josh Bard has mentioned he's learned much from working with one of the game's premier catchers, Jason Varitek. His favorite practice in Spring Training was Varitek's patented "Smack the Pretty-boy Third Baseman in the Mouth" drills.

2 Comments:

If tomorrows headline is either of "Beckett freezes out Blue Jays in win" or "Blue Jays cool off streaking Sox", we'll know a certain someone whose likes include mojo and music, and whose dislikes include rainy days and crediting other.

And I guess I'm just assuming Ian Browne also has an emo MySpace or Match.com ad...